


with the sun setting low

by WET_NOODLES



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Soen no Kiseki/Akatsuki no Megami | Fire Emblem Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn
Genre: Absolutely fucking disgustingly fluffy, F/F, For all 3 of you who wanted this, GONNA KEEP THAT TAG, kink meme fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-30
Updated: 2016-05-30
Packaged: 2018-07-11 01:21:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7019575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WET_NOODLES/pseuds/WET_NOODLES
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Jill had forgotten what it felt like to fill a silence; with saddle-ache in her thighs and Ashera’s light pulsing through her skull, it seemed like a problem from another lifetime. "</p><p>Fill for the FE kink meme on tumblr. Prompt: "Sweet and tender goodbye makeouts (or more) right before Jill returns to Daein."</p>
            </blockquote>





	with the sun setting low

_Gods spare the unblest senator,_  
_The mournfulest ghost to walk the land,_  
_His first companion's misery,_  
_The second is his hand!_

Any more rounds and Jill would lose her Mist's Special Sausages, churning as they were in the pit of her gut like a bag of worms. For all the wars had changed her, she still couldn't stomach alcohol—not the taste, not the effects, not the affectionate camaraderie of strangers. One of the soldiers from Ike's unit—Heather, Jill remembered—had slung an arm over her shoulder, filling Jill's cup from the flagon in her free hand, and after enough needling (“What's a big, strong hero like you standing out here all alone?”) Jill decided that some time away would do her good. 

She'd nothing to fear but maybe bears—or an anxious wyvern taking chase of its master—but as the skies darkened and bled pink, she opted to carry a dagger with her. Something in the twilight, dawn or dusk, put her on edge, as if her own distended shadow were biding its time to strike. 

It wasn't long into her wandering when a second set of footfalls alerted her to a second presence. Before she could unsheath her blade, a cold command stayed her hand. 

“Put that silly toy away, beorc.”

The hard bite on the word “beorc”, the sibilance on the _s_ , the faint, throaty rumble, like a purr—Jill knew the voice all too well. Her hand fell away from her hilt, and she turned to face Lethe. 

“I didn't hear you coming. I… guess I let my guard down.”

Lethe's eyes narrowed, and an ear flicked back like a gnat had flown into it. 

“Yes. The festivities have made witless buffoons of all my men. Were the enemy to strike now, we would meet a most disgraceful end.” 

It struck Jill then how long it had been since their last encounter; she blamed herself for the widening gulf between them, even as armies and friendships set like bones all around. Lethe's hair had grown out, and weariness wore soft lines around her eyes and brow—more since their fight. (It was funny which details lingered the most.) She still struck an imposing figure, browned and muscular and sleek as a river stone, like all the world had worn her edges to a nub. Jill saw her lips, same curl as always, and felt absurd for giving them any mind after going so long without. 

A slow-spreading quiet followed, echoes of far voices reaching the wood like whispers of nature spirits. Jill watched Lethe until the laguz met her eyes, and then Jill swallowed, and returned a wan smile.

“But there is no enemy, isn't there?” It had always been this way, even once they became friends—between Lethe's terseness or Jill's inexperience, they'd fallen into a stumbling dance, where they would trade stepping forward while the other floundered. It was always so easy with Mist, so generous with her words and laughter and love, that Jill had forgotten what it felt like to fill a silence; with saddle-ache in her thighs and Ashera's light pulsing through her skull, it seemed like a problem from another lifetime. 

“I mean, we've done it—it's all over,” she continued, when Lethe did not speak. “Isn't everyone entitled to a little celebration?”

“Perhaps so.” Lethe found her tongue. “And yet here you stand.”

Her eyes were bright and searching, and Jill found herself avoiding them for the sight of her tail's impatient rhythm, flexing from side to side like a horsewhip. 

“You,” Lethe said, with the indignant stammer that Jill had missed so sorely, “as impervious as you are, to the din and stench of beorc assembly. There's no telling what foolish notion has gotten in your head, wandering off as you were.”

“Wait… were you watching me?”

It was Lethe's turn to look away. Jill pressed on with a renewed confidence. 

“You weren't worried about me, were you? Or… or did you just want to speak to me?” When Lethe did not respond, Jill finally felt as though she'd gotten some handle over the conversation. From their time spent together in the Mad King's War, she'd learned that what beorc lacked in sinew and claws they could make up for in candor. 

“I'm sorry,” she said, before the apology had a chance to form in her mind. “For everything, I mean. For… back at Ribahn.”

“I told you to think nothing of it,” Lethe said, sharp enough for Jill to feel foolish. “Pride and circumstance were the cruelest actors in that battle.”

“Still, I should have met with you afterward. Before the Tower at least, where I… I might not have...”

“Yes. That.” Lethe's ears flattened. “Thank whatever god you pray to now that you lived to see today...”

She paused, and there was the faintest hint of a grin.

“Or don't. You're your own master—that much is clear. And… I know you will do great things for Daein.”

Her eyes cast downward, Lethe reached out a hand. It slowly occurred to Jill that she was offering a shake, though her fingers were flexed like a set of claws, and awkwardness read plain on her face. Jill took a step forward to take it between both of her hands.

“I think you'll do great things too,” she said, and against her better sense of decorum, she pulled Lethe into a clumsy embrace. Jill felt Lethe stiffen against her, hands falling to her side before eventually coming around Jill's back. Lethe's hair bristled against her cheek, coarse with dirt and hard Sienne well-water, and a heavy sigh escaped her nose. 

“It's pure idiocy,” Lethe muttered. “How weak I've gotten. When you disappeared into the Tower with Ike and my king, I worried after you as though you were my sister. To think of you, white and mewling, and small, and feeble, like a kit beneath the goddess's boot—”

“I shouldn't have to remind you again of our time in Ribahn.” Jill pulled away to look at her. “… And I'm taller than you!”

Lethe chuckled quietly, quick breaths through her nostrils, and Jill took this chance to kiss her, missing her lips for the corner of her mouth. Lethe made a choked sort of gasp, and Jill broke away. 

“Ah, I'm so sorry! I don't know what's gotten into—I mean, with all the drinking, and...”

The rest died in her throat when Lethe pushed forward to kiss her proper. The leather of her gauntlets pressed into Jill's face as Lethe cupped her jaw, and then it felt as though she was touching her everywhere, skimming fingertips over her chin and the pulse of her throat, her ears and hair, while Jill could do nothing but be led with her back against a tree trunk. Lethe's eyes took on the familiar, rapacious glint beneath her dark lashes, and she pinned Jill by the wrists against the bark behind her. 

“Stop me if you don't want this,” she murmured against Jill's chin, before taking her lower lip between her teeth. “But I can smell the need on you. Your air is thick with it.”

Jill had forgotten how easily Lethe could whip herself into a frenzy, after they had gotten past the initial awkwardness of their first few encounters. She'd also forgotten how easily she'd go along with it, as silly as she'd feel afterward. She broke her arms free of Lethe's grip to wrap them around her middle, pulling their hips flush. The distant cheers and laughter seemed a world away, swallowed as their sighs and gasps were by the forest's peaceful cover, with shafts of evening sun dappling Lethe's crown and brow like mottles on a fur coat. Jill was overcome with a wretched sort of tenderness. 

“Damn the goddess,” she muttered, more to herself than the body pressed against hers, “this isn't fair.”

Lethe pulled away, flushed down to the chest, and searched Jill's face for what she had done wrong. 

“I… sorry, I didn't hurt you, did I?”

Jill shook her head mutely, stooping to rest her chin in the crook of Lethe's neck. She closed her eyes, and after a moment's stillness, asked, “Do you think we'll see each other again?”

She felt Lethe's shoulders relax beneath her, the breath from her sigh warm against Jill's skin.

“I have no doubt. It may be at the worst possible moment, but we will.” She smoothed Jill's bangs back to kiss her brow, and Jill felt a pang of remorse for breaking her focus. 

“Let's make the most of this one, then,” she murmured into an ear, and it twitched attentively as Lethe caught onto her meaning. Lethe tilted her face down and hooked two fingers over her bottom lip, forcing her legs open with a knee pressed against her groin. Jill whimpered around Lethe's finger, finding a temporary balm in the friction, but her breeches were too thick for any real relief to come of it. They'd begun to build up a rhythm of sorts, Lethe rising up to meet her motions as her hands steadied Jill's hips. 

“You are ridiculous though,” Lethe snorted affectionately, nestling her fingers between Jill's belt and the taut skin of her navel. “And I will miss you dearly.”

“S-sister?”

Jill's eyes snapped open, and Lethe had pulled away before she could make sense of the disruption. Lyre made every part of herself small, crouched in the underbrush as if she were still transformed. 

“Sorry! I'm so sorry!” she wailed, “It was Commander Ranulf, he—I was supposed to keep an eye out for you and… I'll go now! I'm sorry!” 

She shifted and bounded away, tail tucked between her legs.

“Lyre, wait! Gah.” Lethe's voice deepened into an unintelligible snarl, and she took chase as a beast.  
The bark against Jill's back held her fast in place as the memory of Lethe's lips and palm burned into her skin. She brought a hand to her mouth, as if to check that she hadn't dreamt the encounter, and then leapt to attention as a beast crashed from the brush.

The laguz pounced and pinned her back against the trunk; pearl-white claws receded into flesh and fingertips on either side of Jill's head. 

“We will continue,” Lethe panted, pressing her forehead to Jill's, “later?” 

Jill nodded dumbly, before she found her words. 

“Even if I have to hunt you down,” she said at last. 

Jill flinched as a flat, rough tongue licked a stripe up her cheek, and when she opened her eyes, Lethe was gone.

  


* * *

  


When Queen Micaiah diverted a portion of Begnion's reparations to Talrega, Jill turned her attention first to the floodgates. She oversaw their reinforcement personally, lending her hands and mount to the efforts, and paying Chione handsomely in lamb chump for her labor. She'd had her wyvern hitched to the waterwheel when the messenger came. She heard his call, reverberating across the massive stone face of the dam, before she spotted him, a wyvern descending from the ramparts while its master hailed her with an arm. 

“Lady Fizzart!” One of Haar's boys. The rider landed, and nearly caught his ankle in a stirrup. “Lady Fizzart, there's—milady, there's a—“

“Peace, Larus. Take a breath, and then tell me.”

She retrieved her axe while Larus exhaled, squaring his shoulders.

“There are s— there are laguz,” he said, “at the gates. They, erm, look to be of the beast tribe.”

Jill's grip on the handle relaxed. 

“Oh, that must be the new contractor. We're meant to meet today.”

“Con—o-oh. I see. I, er, forgive me.”

Jill decided to leave Larus to sort himself out, unhitching Chione from her harness before taking off. From atop the ramparts, she could make out the town gates, but none of her visitors—all she could tell is that a crowd had formed, gathered just inside the walls like a waiting ambush. She landed Chione a short distance away from the mob, her presence alone enough to break their formation, but the wyvern would not stay put. Jill pushed her snout away, and the beast shrieked and fanned her wings, clearing the wall with a few powerful flaps. 

“Chione!”

“Milady, your mount—“

“Clear a path, you moony-eyed maggots!” bellowed the guardsman at the crank. “Let Her Lady pass!” 

When the gates lifted, three laguz waited on the other side; her contractor, fur stiffened, backing away from the beast like a frightened housecat, Mordecai, greeting Jill with a wave of his massive arm, and Lethe, clutching Chione's jaw as the wyvern nuzzled her chest. Her smile was gentler than Jill had ever seen it, and instincts battled her good sense not to tackle Lethe into the ground. 

“Our king ordered an escort for your man,” she explained over Chione's contented rumbles. “And I volunteered.”

In Jill's warring mind, instincts won out.


End file.
